running away (or running to stand still)

2017-05-13

A theme that I’ve noticed in myself and some of my friends in conversation is the thought of running away. Just getting out of the car, just leaving the house, just leaving the country. All because of the same thing: not liking the present situation for whatever very deep and difficult reason(s).

It’s comforting to run away. It’s fun to run away. It’s great to not deal with whatever we don’t want to deal with. But now is the time where running away isn’t an option anymore. There’s too much to leave behind, too much that would fall apart if we left. So, now we have to change, we have to mature, we have to grow.

But growing up hurts. Growing pains are real. I think you never really grow out of growing pains.

However, I do plan to run away to a U2 concert. I have previously said that I wasn’t interested in going to the see the Joshua Tree tour, and while I am not as interested in this tour as the previous tour, it’s hard to say no to these guys. Actually, it’s hard for me to say no to their screens. I love their visuals, and screens have played a huge part since Achtung Baby.

And there’s some irony in it, of course. The original Joshua Tree tour was all old-school, with just lights and smoke or something. No screens. The complex technology of today didn’t exist back then, so back in the 90’s using lots of bulky TVs to make one big collage was what they did for Achtung Baby and that was considered groundbreaking.

This time, Joshua Tree at 30 looks like it has an old-school screen in the sense it’s only one large flat panel on one axis, but it looks SO GOOD. I think it’s maybe 4K or 8K resolution, so it’s going to be immersive. And that’s what I love so much about U2 shows. That’s why I gotta go.